Roland announces software versions of its 808 and 909 drum machines
Finally.
The Roland TR-808 and TR-909 are iconic drum machines that powered a ton of the music from the '80s and '90s. While both hardware units were recently revived as the TR-08 and TR-09, they haven't been officially emulated in software yet. That changes now as Roland announces VST and AU plugins for both of the iconic rhythm modules (along with a new SRX Orchestra virtual instrument set) as part of the company's Roland Cloud service.
The TR-808 and TR-909 virtual instruments are full reproductions of the original hardware, according to Roland. The SRX Orchestra is the first one of the SRX series Expansion Library (from the 2000s) available as a software instrument. Roland Cloud will be a suite of high-resolution software synths and sampled instruments that musicians will be able to pull from while creating their own musical works. It sounds similar to what Adobe has done with its own photo and graphics-based Adobe Cloud. All three new additions are headed as updates to the Roland Cloud service starting in February of this year.
